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Ending deforestation from palm oil

Palm Oil Plantation. (Image credit: P Humphrey)

Palm oil is a versatile, edible
oil found in everything from low-fat milk, cookies, and processed meals to toothpaste and deodorant.
Unfortunately, much of the palm oil used in consumer products comes from farms in
Indonesia and Malaysia, where the growth of agriculture is causing, in part, massive
deforestation. As the only home to the organgutan, one of our closest living relatives,
this is driving the species to the brink of extinction.

The good news is that, as a consumer, you can make a difference. In particular, you can tell
the companies whose products you buy to adopt policies that will minimize, or eliminate, the environmental impact of the
palm oil they use. A number of leading environmental organizations, such as
Greenpeace,
the Rainforest Action Network,
World Wildlife Fund,
and the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), have
led compaigns to pressure the largest palm oil users to use only palm oil that eliminates deforestation
as far as possible.

As a consumer, the PalmSmart app will tell you which products you buy contain palm oil,
and how committed to sustainability the manufacturer is.

Sustainable and deforestation free palm oil

A number of organizations have been established to define standards for sustainability in palm oil production.
Arguably the most widely recognized is the RSPO, an association of
stakeholders in the palm oil industry including multinational corporations, palm oil producers and NGOs. Based on
its own guidelines,
which include a supplier's commitment to avoid clearing primary forest or using fire to clear land,
RSPO certifies palm oil as sustainable (CSPO).
RSPO certification
has been widely criticized
by environmental groups, however,
as not going far enough to prevent widespread deforestation.
Despite its limitations, RSPO certification
arguably constitutes progress
towards eliminating deforestation, and many manufacturers have either joined the RSPO, or committed only to use
palm oil from RSPO-certified suppliers.

With PalmSmart, by scanning a product's barcode, you can find out how well a company is doing
in terms of its palm oil commitments. Our grading scheme
is based around the rubric used by UCS
for their 2015 Palm Oil Scorecard.
To obtain a passing grade, a company needs to go beyond the RSPO standards (see side panel).

What should companies be doing?

The continued survival of the orangutan, and other threatened species, requires the elimination of
deforestation. To make this happen, responsible companies need to adopt robust palm oil policies
that commit them to using only palm oil produced without significant deforestation.

The palm oil policy should be
published promimently, for example on a corporate website, and involve specific commitments, going
beyond RSPO certification,
to source
only palm oil that guarantees the protection of all forestland,
the protection of all peatlands, transparent procedures to trace palm oil to the plantation,
the reporting of greenhouse gas emissions, and concrete goals to reach full compliance.
Where possible, companies should consider becoming members of a body such as
POIG, or the
RSPO, and regularly report their progress towards
eliminating unsustainable palm oil.

Many companies do not directly purchase palm oil, but still use ingredients that may contain palm oil.
In that case, we believe the responsible choice is to make a robust commitment only to buy from suppliers that
have adopted strong palm oil policies limiting deforestation themselves. Such a commitment should be published
in a public forum, such as a corporate website, and be backed by concrete evidence of compliance, for example
naming specific suppliers, or publishing the volumes of palm oil products used each year.

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